Prettiest
by Elizabeth Tudor
Summary: Paradise and her prince are lost in one stupid mistake, but the Painted Doll finds that staring into the void can be...oddly comforting, with the right company. "We're always our prettiest," the Lord of Darkness told her gently, one taloned hand cupping her cracked cheek, thumb stroking her shattered brow, "after our fall." Spoilers for Alleluia!


_**A/N:**_ _Spoilers for_ _Devil's Carnival: Alleluia!_ _You might not want to read if you haven't seen._

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The girl who was no longer an angel who was no longer June sat, staring blankly into the mirror. The Ticket-Keeper had shown her in and helped her wash her broken face and left her, presuming she would wish to settle in alone, but all she wanted was not to think, to make her brain as numb as her cracked and lifeless cheek.

"Penny for your thoughts," came the low rumble of a bass voice behind her, and the girl instinctively flinched away. "No? Horseshoe, perhaps?"

"Doesn't matter now," she muttered as Lucifer came into view, suit dapper and skin the color of the dawn sailors feared. She wondered briefly if he had cloven hooves hidden in those boots, then dismissed it as being just as irrelevant as everything else.

"Nothing really does," the Lord of Hell said, sitting down beside her and stretching his legs out comfortably. "At least, nothing matters unless we decide it does. That's our domain, the things, the people, that others cast aside. We take them in and make them our own and make them _matter_ , until they can't be ignored anymore."

She eyed her companion, interested in spite of herself. Almost without thinking, she scooped up a fingerful of greasepaint and was a moment away from spreading it on his cheek when she caught herself.

"May I?" she demurred, lowering her eyes politely. Lessons learned too late.

"There's no _'may I_ ' here," Lucifer told her firmly, catching her wrist and bringing her paint-smeared fingers to his face. "No permission. There's only _can_ and _can't_. Begging for leave to piss, to breathe...that's for Up There."

"Quite a change," the fallen angel said faintly, her leaf-colored eyes flickering as she began rubbing the white greasepaint over to the Lord of Hell's flame-seared face. He closed his eyes obligingly, and she worked, hesitantly at first, then faster and with more grace, creating a perfect oval of white makeup, then sketching in with black and red, her fingers almost flying.

"Quite a change," the angel who was no longer June said again, more firmly this time. "I think...I'll enjoy that part." She stopped to admire her handiwork, and Lucifer grinned broadly at her, his white teeth bared. She had given him the pursed lips and soaring eyebrows and cheekbones of a kabuki demon, and glancing in the stage mirror, he had to admit he liked the effect.

"A change, yes. Breaking things to remake them, instead of just throwing them aside. We're always our prettiest," the Lord of Darkness told her gently, one taloned hand cupping her cracked cheek, thumb stroking her shattered brow, "after our fall."

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It was sometime later. The Doll had become a part of the Carnival, as accepted a sight as the Scorpion throwing knives, or the Ticket-Keeper striding about in exasperated efficiency. But now the carnies were all gathered under the big-top, called by the Morningstar to discuss the future of their little entertainment. Souls were pouring in, rejected by Heaven and weeping with pain, and changes would have to be made if the Carnival was to take them all in.

"Now," Lucifer boomed, his strange eyes scanning the crowd, "what really makes a Hell?" There were some half-hearted murmurs, suggestions of things like snakes and burning embers that died away to a rustling, self-conscious silence, before someone spoke, dropping a single word resolute into the space beneath the tent.

" _Rules_."

A shift, a stirring as everyone turned to gape at the silent Doll, who remained staring at her arched feet. She had _spoken_...?

But it was clear no more was forthcoming.

Lucifer's lips drew back to bare his teeth in a sly, feral grin. " _Rules_ ," he repeated, tapping his too-white teeth with one long talon. "What a good idea. Lots of them, and arbitrarily enforced without rhyme nor reason. I think we can make that work," he mused, as the Ticket-Keeper scribbled frantically. "I think we can make that work very well _indeed_."

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 _ **A/N:**_ _So there you have it. I was lucky enough to see the second film in Chicago, and it got me wondering about how Lucifer got his obsession with makeup, and where all of Hell's rules came from if everything was permitted... Hope you enjoyed! And just a bit of fridge horror, if anyone feels like discussing - God clearly doesn't like Lucifer. If the beating from the Translators cracked June's face like porcelain, what happened to him to make his skin so red?_

 _Also, the story text is precisely 666 words. =)_


End file.
